Guide: Classes & Jobs

EU-Odin, Final Fantasy XIV Free Company

Ok. Alright. So you’ve heard all this fuss about how you can have all the classes in one and the same character in Final Fantasy, but you’re not quite sure how it works. Fear not. We shall try our best to clarify this absolutely amazing aspect of the game for you! – Astra (Kallah)

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What’s the difference between a class and a job?

The class is what you start out with, the job is an upgraded advanced version of this primary class.

To start learning a job you need to reach lvl 30 with its primary class first.

Some jobs that have been added in later expansions don’t have a class a class requirement. They do however require you to reach a certain level before you can access them.

The class is what you level up, the job will always have the same level as the class it belongs to.

How do I start a new class or job?

ClassWhen you want to start a class you visit your class guild. Class guilds are spread out in the major cities of Eorzea. Find your class guild and ask the npc with a blue quest marker to join the guild. If you accept, you will gain access to the class and by accept quests from the class guild, you will be able to learn the abilities that belongs to it. You can join as many class guilds as you wish, on the same character.

Job
When you reach level 30 of your class, the class quests will lead you to the job trainer. Talk to the trainer and complete the first set of quests to gain the soul crystal for that particular job. You need to equip this crystal first, before you can continue to accept quests and gain abilities for the job. Your character can obtain one soul crystal for each job in the game.

Expansion Jobs
Some jobs don’t require you to have a class first and they don’t have guilds. Instead, you just need to be a certain level or access to a certain zone before you can learn it. Once you hit that level, you can approach the job’s trainer and gain the job crystal from them. You will also learn all abilities and gain a job weapon/gear set from this trainer.

How does leveling work with all this?

Swap freely between classes
In this game, you level classes and you can swap between them freely. You will always keep your levels for a class, even if you swap from and then back to that class.

This means that you can start leveling a Gladiator and reach level 70 with it, then go the conjurer’s guild and start that class from level one, level it to say 20, then go back to Gladiator at 70 for a while, should you feel like it.

Jobs have the same level as its class
The class is what you level up. The job will always share the same level as the primary class it’s tied to.

In the case of expansion jobs, they are class and job in one and you level them as one. A lot of the time they do not start on level one, instead you start from a level closer to the expansion for which it was released.

Jobs released in Heavensward (3.0): Dark Knight, Astrologian and Machinist, start from level 30 and do not require primary classes, instead starting with a full set of abilities of their own.

Jobs released in Stormblood (4.0): Samurai and Red Mage, start from level 50 and do not require primary classes similar to the Heavensward jobs.

How do I swap between my class/job?

You can swap back and forth between classes and jobs without loosing your levels or abilities. Once you’ve learned them, they last forever.

Class
Every class wields a different kind of weapon. To swap classes, you simply equip a weapon belonging to that class. For a white mage in example, it would be a cane. Of course, if you haven’t joined the class guild yet, you won’t be able to equip the weapon at all. In that case, make sure you join the class guild first, before you try again.

Job
First, swap to the primary class that the job is tied to. Second, activate the job by equiping its soul crystal. Returning to a primary class works similarly by leaving the crystal slot empty.

Expansion Jobs
In this case, you don’t need to swap to a specific class first. Just equip a weapon, then the job crystal associated with the class and you will change. Of course, you still need to activate the job through the job trainer first, before you can do this.

How do I learn the abilities of my class/job?

Jobs possess all of the abilities of their primary class and are able to select five additional actions shared among all jobs of that role.

Most abilities are unlocked by gaining levels. Some of them however will come from doing your class and job quests. Naturally, the ones that are unlocked by your job quests, also become unavailable if you remove the job’s soul crystal.

There are three types of abilities that will be available to you (short command “P”):

Actions – These are active abilities that you drag to your hotbars to keybind or click to use.

Traits – Traits are passive abilities that activate automatically. They sometimes modify your actions or give you passive buffs. Up to level 60 jobs borrow their Traits from their primary class. Traits you gain from level 61-70 are however job specific. This means that you won’t be able to use them, unless you have the soul crystal equipped.

Role Actions – These are abilities that are role specific. A role action is shared between all the classes that belong to the same role. You will be able to choose up to five of these to keep active at any point in time. You can change this as often as you like (but not during combat), and drag and drop them to your hotbars.

Final fantasy have three different combat roles; Tank, Healer and Damage (DPS), DPS also have three sub categories:

Tank

Healer

Damage (DPS)

Melee DPS

Ranged Physical DPS

Ranged Magical DPS

How do I get started on my gear?

1-50 – There is generally no need for buying gear while you are leveling. Dungeons and quests will provide you with what you need, at least until you reach level 50. You will also gain a full gear set from your job quests, while going from 30-50.

50-70 – Once you hit 50 you will unlock Allagan Tomeof Poetics from dungeons. You can use these to purchase some higher ilvl gear that will last you from 50-60. They’re not necessary, but might make things easier/faster for you. Similar gear can be purchased once you reach 60.

70 – At level 70, gearing becomes more complex since it’s the current end level cap. We’ve written a specific guide for this. Follow this link to view it >>